mistaken evaluation

It’s impossible for most poets to recognize that they’ve written something of little worth.

store of value

Poetry is a lot like Bitcoin: It’s worth a lot to those who value it, and not much to anyone else.

value-add

The advent of AI will only add cachet to human-made works

about poems

It’s about the poems not where they were published.

not on the same page

Two poets were talking about the value of reading, how it informed their work, and probably they were reading entirely different books.

cards play themselves

In poker, when the cards are laid on the table, we say ‘the cards play themselves’: no interpretation needed to determine who has the better hand. So it should be in book reviewing—quote heavily from the book, and let the lines themselves show their relative value.

open and closed

You wanted to write, but you valued your reticence.

word sounds

Let me repeat my conclusion: sounds in practical language (practical verbal thinking) don’t possess independent value, they don’t draw our attention, and we are not consciously aware of them. In poetic language (poetic verbal thinking), conversely, sounds do become the focus of our attention; they acquire independent value, and we become consciously aware of them.

[…]

Mikhail Lermontov, too, provides compelling evidence on this topic. He frequently writes of the sounds of words, separating them from their meanings. Thus, a variant of his poem “Angel” reads:

   The soul settled down amid earthly creation
   But it felt estranged in this world.
   Of one thing only it dreamed: sacred sounds,
   Their meaning it did not remember.

—L. P. Yakubinsky, On Language and Poetry (Upper West Side Philosophers, 2018), translated by Michael Eskin

relative value

This one stanza was equal to a thousand other poems.

looking past the crowd

An artist doesn’t mistake audience for achievement.

market in action

If you want to gauge the current esteem (and value) of poets, those dead and some older living ones, then peruse the pages of a rare book dealer’s sales catalog. Is the name even there, and what kind of prices are listed for the books and other collectible literary material?

coins, stamps, poems

When a coin is misstruck or a postage stamp misprinted, it accrues more value. But a typo in a book of poems is always seen as a diminishment.

reward system

Poetry needs to have so many prizes and awards, otherwise its undertaking would be of uncertain value.

currency trade

If poetry is a kind of money it’s as mysterious in value as bitcoin.

is worth all

The poem doesn’t try to sell itself. Its improbable existence in this world gives it worth.

oh goody

The covers of the leading magazines for writers have captions like: “More than 100 Opportunities for Grants, Awards & Publication” and “101 Contests with Upcoming Deadlines.”

guard dogs

The lesser poets of the group/school are the ones most protective, even militant, in preserving its domain. Because that domain is the only thing that gives their work value.

art's remuneration

One of those artists who thought the world owed him a living without proof of his worth.

relative value

I’d rather own the best work by a minor artist than one of the lesser pieces by a great one.

beauty be

The whole project of 'aesthetics' is in many ways about defining beauty. The problem is not ‘the trying to define’; the problem is thinking there is a fixed immutable definition upon which all will settle and all debate will cease. It's all the 'talk about' that creates its own kind of value.